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The USA used to have skilled factory workers until jobs went overseas for factories. Now almost nobody studies how to work in a factory because of lack of avail

The USA used to have skilled factory workers until jobs went overseas for factories. Now almost nobody studies how to work in a factory because of lack of available jobs in the USA. If you want to bring back the jobs to the USA you have to get more people to study how to work in a factory again.

twoodfin 11y ago
The US still has a large number (~12M) of largely skilled manufacturing jobs, and manufactures more product (~$2T) by $ value than anywhere else in the world but China. It just needs fewer workers per $ produced than it used to. There's nothing about either of those trends that's unfortunate.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  And neither is unfixable, it will however impact cost and that's why I think that Tim Cook is not entirely honest here. You can get all this done locally, the skills are there. But those skills are expensive because the same skill level person in the US has a different pay than the person in China. Eventually that advantage will erode and then the locusts will move to the next available third world economy (likely India, or maybe even Africa).
  - twoodfin 11y ago
    But those skills are expensive because the same skill level person in the US has a different pay than the person in China. I don't think that's true, or at least, not true for the vast majority of workers. A typical US manufacturing worker is an order of magnitude more productive (a good, if imperfect, proxy for skill) than a Chinese one, and if anything is underpaid for the value they provide. China just has massively more labor available.
  - VinzO 11y ago
    Many companies are moving already to countries like Cambodia or Vietnam because China has become "too expensive".
simonh 11y ago
How many Americans actually want to go back to a low-cost assembly based manufacturing economy? I'm a Brit and recently had a rather weird experience as a friend of mine waxed lyrical on the one hand about how Britain needs more honest manufacturing jobs because that's how wealth is created, while also talking up how great his Son's private school is and that he's got a fund set aside for the boy's University education, probably in the arts. It was more than a little surreal. The fact is UK manufacturing is actually doing pretty well. It accounts for 12% of the country's output compared to a high of 25%, and has mainly migrated into higher value engineering and design. So yes it's a lot lower than during the 70s proportionately, but they are predominantly much, much better jobs. What we should be doing is what my friend is actually doing versus what he was advocating. Educating and investing our way into a higher value economy.
- norea-armozel 11y ago
  If I knew there was a future in manufacturing I wouldn't had bothered with college except to grow my knowledge for its own sake. Factory work that pays well enough to take care of my bills and leave with more than enough to save up for things is IMO better than risking it all in a college degree that may be worthless due to shifts in career news hype.

twoodfin 11y ago

The US still has a large number (~12M) of largely skilled manufacturing jobs, and manufactures more product (~$2T) by $ value than anywhere else in the world but China. It just needs fewer workers per $ produced than it used to. There's nothing about either of those trends that's unfortunate.

jacquesm 11y ago
And neither is unfixable, it will however impact cost and that's why I think that Tim Cook is not entirely honest here. You can get all this done locally, the skills are there. But those skills are expensive because the same skill level person in the US has a different pay than the person in China. Eventually that advantage will erode and then the locusts will move to the next available third world economy (likely India, or maybe even Africa).
- twoodfin 11y ago
  But those skills are expensive because the same skill level person in the US has a different pay than the person in China. I don't think that's true, or at least, not true for the vast majority of workers. A typical US manufacturing worker is an order of magnitude more productive (a good, if imperfect, proxy for skill) than a Chinese one, and if anything is underpaid for the value they provide. China just has massively more labor available.
- VinzO 11y ago
  Many companies are moving already to countries like Cambodia or Vietnam because China has become "too expensive".

simonh 11y ago

How many Americans actually want to go back to a low-cost assembly based manufacturing economy? I'm a Brit and recently had a rather weird experience as a friend of mine waxed lyrical on the one hand about how Britain needs more honest manufacturing jobs because that's how wealth is created, while also talking up how great his Son's private school is and that he's got a fund set aside for the boy's University education, probably in the arts. It was more than a little surreal. The fact is UK manufacturing is actually doing pretty well. It accounts for 12% of the country's output compared to a high of 25%, and has mainly migrated into higher value engineering and design. So yes it's a lot lower than during the 70s proportionately, but they are predominantly much, much better jobs. What we should be doing is what my friend is actually doing versus what he was advocating. Educating and investing our way into a higher value economy.

norea-armozel 11y ago
If I knew there was a future in manufacturing I wouldn't had bothered with college except to grow my knowledge for its own sake. Factory work that pays well enough to take care of my bills and leave with more than enough to save up for things is IMO better than risking it all in a college degree that may be worthless due to shifts in career news hype.